NCJ Number
88690
Journal
Journal of Police Science and Administration Volume: 10 Issue: 4 Dated: (December 1982) Pages: 371-375
Date Published
1982
Length
5 pages
Annotation
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms has developed a computerized data base for storing and retrieving information on court challenges to scientific evidence, classes of scientific evidence, and techniques for evidence examination.
Abstract
The attorney who would proffer expert testimony must be prepared to support over objection the acceptability of the evidence and should have sufficient familiarity with the tests used to ensure that the testimony of the expert is effectively presented. To meet these demands, a knowledge of the successful introduction of similar testimony in other cases is needed. The defense attorney must determine where information about the particular technique applied to the type of evidence in question can be obtained, in establishing whether or not successful challenges to the evidence can be made, and in identifying an appropriate approach to attacking the testimony to be presented. Unfortunately for the attorney and the court, information of this type is not readily available. This problem was of concern to the headquarters forensic laboratory of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. The data base developed provides for input data consisting of court challenge, type of evidence, technique, and citation. Character strings rather than numerical coding are used for the different categories of information. A glossary of searchable designators for each of these categories was assembled. The storage and retrieval of legal citations was initially performed on a Data General NOVA 1200 minicomputer with 16K storage. A LINC tape system, using a master and two slave tapes, was used to input data and provide hard copy. Two programs, LEGAL, used to build the data base, and CITE, a search and retrieval program, were developed using extended BASIC. The data base has the potential to grow into a valuable reference source for the criminalist, the investigator, and the attorney. File codes are provided in tabular form, along with five references.